1 in 5 university students tries their hand at hacking - techwatch.co.uk - 22 Sep 2010

Security firm Tufin Technologies has produced a report which states that over 20% of university students have had a go at hacking.

The research questioned 1000 students aged 18 to 21 from eight different universities, five of them London based.

37% of respondents had hacked into a Facebook account, although the definition of hacking isn’t clarified here – is that percentage so high because it includes “hacking” as in stealing a glance at someone typing their password in? While that’s a method of comprising an account, it’s not strictly hacking as such…

26% said they had hacked into email accounts, and 10% online shopping accounts. Those figures are surprisingly high, although at least 84% of those surveyed recognised hacking was wrong, even if that clearly didn’t stop all of them from attempting it.

There was no gender bias when it came to student hackers, with equal amounts of boys and girls dabbling. 18% of the students considered hacking to be an easy task, apparently.

When it came to the boot being on the other foot, and finding out whether students have actually been victims of a compromised account, Tufin found that 46% had fallen foul of hackers when it came to their social networking or email account.

Shaul Efraim, VP of Products, Marketing and Business Development at Tufin, commented: “It is clear we have a smart new generation emerging who understand how to get around computer systems – some are doing it just for fun others with slightly more sinister intent!

“It’s imperative that we begin to educate this generation about the good, the bad and the ugly side of the Internet and channel these skills appropriately and legally.”

Not sure it’ll stop friends fraping each other on Facebook, though

By Darren Allan